Madison Reporter

Public Health Madison & Dane County launched a new Dane County Respiratory Illness Dashboard. The agency designed the dashboard to help people track the latest trends in COVID-19, flu, RSV, and more during the winter respiratory season.

“Our COVID-19 dashboard has been immensely popular and we hope this new data dashboard gives people a broader view of what viruses are circulating,” said Janel Heinrich, director of Public Health. “You can use the homepage to get a quick idea of current trends, or look at every page to get in-depth information.”

On the dashboard, you can find trends by age, lab testing results, air sampler results, school testing results, hospitalizations, and deaths.

“One of the lessons learned during the COVID pandemic is that there is a strong demand for this kind of dashboard in our community,” said Heinrich. “We hope that by making this information accessible, we are helping provide people with the information they need to make decisions about their health.”

The dashboard contains data from many different sources, including collaborations with Dane County researchers who are tracking viruses through new technologies like air sampling machines.

“To our knowledge we are the first public health department in the world with a dashboard that incorporates this type of air sampling data,” said Dr. Dave O’Connor, professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UW Medical Foundation.

“We are excited to see comprehensive information on the viruses that affect us all condensed into something meaningful and accessible for families, educators, health professionals, and communities,” added Dr. Jonathan Temte, medical director at Public Health Madison & Dane County and associate dean for public health and community engagement at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Public health collaborated with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District, the Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene, the UW Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, and the UW Department of Pathology & Lab Medicine to create this dashboard.

“We want to thank all of our partners for supporting the work of this dashboard and contributing their data and expertise,” said Heinrich.

For more information, check out the dashboard at publichealthmdc.com/data.

Original source can be found here.